San Diego  After 35 years of hosting first kisses and last dances, the city’s only remaining roller-skating rink is in danger of shutting down — the latest in a series of closures that has left the eight-wheeled set across the country reeling.

Skateworld Roller Rink in Linda Vista has navigated the pasttime’s peaks and valleys, from the fall of disco to the rise of roller derby. Now owner Gary Stang will likely lose his lease, which would leave the city of 1.2 million without a facility dedicated to roller skating.

With its signature earth-toned beams and classic arcade, Skateworld anchors an aging commercial strip in the 6900 block of Linda Vista Road. The San Diego Redevelopment Agency recently approved an exclusive-negotiation agreement with a developer for the agency-owned property. The proposal calls for offices, retail shops and a community and recreation center that could house roller skating, indoor soccer, and art and cultural programming, said Jorge Riquelme, executive director of the Bayside Community Center.

The irony, industry observers insist, is that many family-owned roller rinks are thriving. Stang regularly packs his floor with hundreds of skaters, and his roller derby bouts draw upward of 800 visitors.

“If you look around the country, there are hundreds of skating rinks doing fantastic numbers. Some rink owners have to turn people away on Friday nights,” said Randy Ray, a board member of the Indianapolis-based Roller Skating Association International. “The biggest myth surrounding these closures is that roller skating is waning in popularity. That simply isn’t the case.”

The reality is there are fewer places to skate. The number of roller rinks nationwide has fallen steadily. In the past decade, the association’s membership has plunged from 1,200 rinks to 800.

The list of local closures has swelled to include Palisade Gardens in North Park, Aquarius Roll-A-Rena in La Mesa and Tri-City in Solana Beach. Among the recent casualties were Ups-N-Downs in Escondido and RollerSkateLand in Santee and Chula Vista.

“A lot of people see us as a social program without the social funding,” Stang said. “I am getting calls from people who are very emotional. They are seeing cutbacks to the library, rec centers and police and fire. This is one more displacement of a public service that the community is passionate about, that they enjoy bringing their families to.”

The demise of skating rinks has hit particularly hard in California, said Michael Jacques, treasurer of the international association and the owner of Roller King in Roseville. As operators approach retirement, many of them can’t resist lucrative offers to unload prime real estate.

“They say, ‘I am going to get out because my family doesn’t want to take control of the business,’ ” Jacques said by phone from the Roller Sports Figure Skating National Championships in Lincoln, Neb. “And to start from scratch, you are looking at $1 million to $1.5 million.”

John Hall, a professional roller derby athlete who lives in Encinitas, knows too well what it’s like to lose a rink. After finishing a career with the Los Angeles Thunderbirds, he operated a facility for nine years in a tough part of Los Angeles.

“We kept kids off the streets, from the ones who came in to take up skating to the ones we paid $5 to watch the cars,” Hall said. “If they weren’t there, then where would they be?”

Hall said he left in 1985, when much of the center’s property was redeveloped.

While rinks like Skate San Diego in National City have refocused their operations around roller hockey, Stang stuck to a familiar formula: updated lighting effects and consistent pricing for roller skating. In recent years, the rink has welcomed San Diego Roller Derby, with Stang and his son acting as coaches, said Teresa “Velvet Klaw” Salazar.

“We’re looking to get the word out about the potential loss to the community,” she said. “Now is the time to do something before it’s too late and we lose any say in the decision.”

The group Friends of Skateworld Roller Rink has planned a rally and skate session at 6 tonight. With 1,300 members, each has a story to tell: Alan McNamee was one of the first sailors accepted to the Navy’s athletic team as a roller skater. He spent just a moment at Skateworld in 1975, but always remembered its distinctive design.

Dionne Murphy spent much of her childhood skating at Skateworld, her neighborhood rink. Long after the fall of feathered hair and bell-bottoms, she brings her children to skate there.

For Shannon Albinio, organizer of the friends group, the rink represents a safe place to escape the pains of addiction and gang activity that plagued both her home and Linda Vista neighborhood at the time.

“If it wasn’t for Skateworld,” she said, “I honestly don’t know where I would be in life.”